The latest video from der8auer has certainly caught the attention of tech enthusiasts and overclockers around the world. He gives a pretty stark assessment of the latest batch of motherboards from three major vendors, stating unequivocally that the VRM designs of the X299 series motherboards are a disaster. Strong words indeed.

Roman explains his findings after testing several motherboards. The major problem being that the he is seeing dangerously high VRM temperatures which cause the new Skylake-X processors to throttle down under load. In the first section of the video he mentions that a CPU that he knows can do 5GHz was restricted to only 4.6GHz (1.25v) due to excessively high temperatures. The source of the problem seems to the actual heatsinks used for the VRM design. Instead of having ample surface area to effectively dissipate heat, current designs are using a block type design that does little to sufficiently cool the VRM components.

He also goes on to discuss the 8-pin CPU power connectors that are being used on the majority of X299 boards. Roman explains that a ten core Skylake Core i7 7800X processor can pull around 300 watts when overclocked and under full load. In his opinion an 8-pin solution is not suffcicient, especially in terms of heat where the cables could breach maximum recommended temps.

The upshot of Roman’s findings lead him to conclude that he cannot currently recommend any of the X299 motherboards he has tested so far - a pretty damning assessment of the latest and greatest HEDT platform. There are doubtlessly many reasons why these issues are cropping up. Hopefully they will be resolved soon. If you have any thoughts, go ahead and chime in the forum link below.